Some other trade show.

OK, I've got five days of clothes packed. Actually, I've decided to bring a sixth pair of socks and an extra pair of underwear, just in case things go horribly wrong in Los Angeles. I went out today and bought some overly-expensive portable charging brick that I can use to keep my iPhone running for a full day of actual use. I'm staring at myself in the mirror a lot and attempting to psych myself up. All of this can only mean that E3 2012 is upon us.

Excited yet? Some of you are, some aren't. This year could be a bit of a sleeper, with plenty of interesting software and not a lot of noisy hardware oomph backing it up. But shows like that can also set us up for huge announcements, precisely because no one else sees it coming. Either way, I've seen enough of the games that are going to be there next week to know that there are going to be some pretty hot bangers through 2012 and 2013. Some of those bangers I've already played, but I want to make sure that the rest of the guys get a chance to see that stuff. So, with that in mind, we booked an appointment to see XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which was one of the coolest things I've played recently. Hopefully the final version holds up.

I'm also interested in playing Injustice: Gods Among Us, which has a different button configuration than Mortal Kombat, including a dedicated button for background interaction (like the car tossing seen in the trailer). And, of course, there's The Last of Us. The demo I saw was old--from January or so--so I'd expect that there'll be something newer shown during Sony's press conference. And hey, how about Need For Speed: Most Wanted? Sure, it's kind of crazy that they're just reusing the name of a game that also came out on this generation of hardware, but assuming this is an open-world driving game with plenty of police action, and knowing that Criterion is the team behind it, it's certainly made my own personal black list.

Unless Razor Callahan's not in it. In that case, all bets are off. I'm only mostly kidding.

E3 2012: OVER 40 ACRES OF BOATS

E3 2012 begins in earnest on Monday morning, with Microsoft's press conference. From there, it'll be EA, then Ubi, then Sony. After that, there's a Microsoft showcase event that I'll be heading to so we can actually play some of their stuff. The rest of the guys will probably hang out at Sony for a bit, because they usually have kiosks with running games on them. But we won't dawdle there too long. We'll have to get back to our streaming spot and get a live show going so we can talk about the events of the day with a collection of guests. The plan is to get the live show going around 8PM every night, but you know how these things can be. We'll be spread out across LA to see games, and I wouldn't be surprised if we started late here and there.

Tuesday morning starts with Nintendo, which I have to imagine will be the most exciting press conference of the bunch, barring any hosting fiascos at Ubisoft. New hardware rules the day at these things and Nintendo's probably going to be the only guys who have that. After that, the show starts in earnest, and we'll get to the floor and get going. Around 3PM or so on Tuesday, I'll be swinging by GameSpot's second stage to check in with John and say hey.

OK, so, for the press conferences we'll be carrying GameSpot's Twitch.TV channel in our chat room, so you'll be able to congregate there and watch. We'll also keep that up for the duration of the show so you can check out their stage demos, once again chaired by Chris Watters. I've seen the list of games they're booking and it appears that they'll have a pretty good show. At night, we'll shut that business down and swap over to our Twitch channel, which is where the nighttime magic will be happening. If you're into the whole Twitch ecosystem, feel free to head over there and follow our channel. Then you can get emails or mobile alerts or smoke signals whenever we're going live. We'll do four shows, Monday through Thursday. We'll also have Vinny, Drew, Daniel, and Thomas anchoring the rest of our on-floor video pretense, letting us get out there and shoot interviews and... ya know... see stuff at E3.

Three people you are likely to see during this year's broadcast!

Alex and I are the only ones who care about tradition, it seems. I think we're the only two people here who are driving down to LA. That'll happen on Sunday, and we're going to try to live stream as much of it as we can. That requires a few different things to line up, though. First, the Justin.TV app will have to be stable and functioning. If you've tried to watch me and Ryan drive home lately, you know that it's been a bit... spotty? Second, we'll need proper 3G signal between here and Los Angeles. There were a ton of dead spots the last time we tried this, so... we'll see. That'll happen on my own Twitch channel, so... maybe peek in on that once or twice tomorrow and see if we've managed to get it working. I'll probably be posting about that stuff on Twitter, too, so follow that, if you're in the following mood.

That... should be just about it? There are still a handful of things related to equipment and process that I'm sort of sweating, but E3's going to happen whether that stuff gets ironed out or not, right? Wish us luck on that stuff, and assuming that all of our equipment isn't destroyed during E3, hopefully we can get it all back to San Francisco and start thinking about producing content that wasn't shot on my ZI8. A novel idea, I know.

See ya on the other side!

XOXO,

Jeff